Lin Qing: Assigned Seating

The exhibition is by internal invitation only, with public open days scheduled during the exhibition period.

Public Open Days in July: 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, 18, 24, 25, and 31 1:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Ticket: RMB 20 per person

As Blunt Society’s summer special exhibition, this project is curated by Ni Youyu and brings together several major painting series by Lin Qing from 2012 to the present, offering a concentrated overview of the evolution of the artist’s practice over the years.

Lin Qing was born in Shanghai, China, in 1982, and graduated from the Department of Printmaking at the College of Fine Arts, Shanghai University. During his time at the academy, he was already committed to exploring painting materials and visual language. In 2006, Ni Youyu initiated, organized, and curated a series of themed exhibitions in Shanghai titled Hand Feel, focusing on a young generation of artists. As one of the earliest participants in the Hand Feel exhibitions, Lin Qing has, over the past two decades, maintained a sustained passion for painting and a continuous inquiry into the fundamental questions of the medium itself.

Over the years, Lin Qing’s subjects have been shaped by a distinctive personal perspective. As an “observer,” he examines the unique aesthetics of man-made objects that emerged after the Industrial Revolution. As a “collector,” he rearranges and reorganizes the objects that interest him, presenting them in a painterly form that resembles a “typological atlas.” His paintings are therefore particularly attentive to the proportions and textures of their subjects. At first glance, viewers can clearly sense the artist’s control over “order” within the picture plane; yet upon closer viewing, one soon discovers the irrepressible sensitivity and excitement embedded in the painting process.

For many years, Lin Qing has used painting in an almost obsessive manner to create portraits of these supposedly cold and impersonal “objects,” allowing them to regain a kind of anthropomorphic vitality. This may be understood as a process of “investigating things to extend knowledge” through artistic means. It is also the artist’s own form of nostalgia for, and tribute to, the glorious era after the Industrial Revolution and before the age of AI.

The exhibition will run through August 9, 2026. During the exhibition period, Blunt Society will also present, on an irregular basis, several classic vintage designer chairs, creating a dialogue across medium and time with the chair imagery in Lin Qing’s latest Converter series.

We warmly invite you to visit the exhibition and “take your assigned seating.”